"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
Vlad Tepes had a way of dealing with “illegal aliens” who transgressed his borders:
Hmmm, an idea for our borders? Pour encourager les autres, as it were…
While the idea has a certain appeal, I doubt it’d get by all the screaming from the “Surrender our borders!” bunch.
*sigh* One can always pick out writers who have read darned little (and that of little worth) in their lives by misuses or even complete misstatements of common phrases in their writings. ( Always? OK, not always. Sometimes other clues tip the scale. Back to the regularly-scheduled rant.)
Case in point: While reading a political article (which I shall not link in order to protect the guilty), I read, “For all intensive purposes,” and immediately stopped reading. I did make a comment about subliterates at the site (and left out “does”–an essential word in the sentence! *heh*), but methought, “Hmmm, blog rant!”
OK, here’s the deal: when I run across someone pontificating from a self-appointed position as a pundit who uses such subliterate goonerosities *heh* as “for all intensive purposes” (add to the pile of subliterate crap, “irregardless” and “escape goat” and “hone in on” and “tongue and cheek” and… you perhaps get the picture), I simply stop reading their writing. Why pollute my brain with more literary sewage from someone who’s read little and whose selection of reading matter–what little there has been–has obviously been subliterate crap? (A typical subliterate construction in that sentence would’ve been “whose” for “who’s” or vice versa. ;-))
I blame it all on TV. 😉
(Well, and lazy people.)
Micro-mini-update:
I just thought to google, “common errors in English” and found this. It looks as though it covers an abundance of the kinds of things that make me want to slap silly those dishonest word jockeys who are paid to spout subliterate crap (taking good money to perform shoddy work is theft, IMO. Ah, well, bad money’s driving out good money, now, anyway… ).
Thanks to TF and his reminder of Norm Crosby’s malapropisms. Here’s a takeoff on that theme: